Tuesday, April 21, 2015

Finally, result. This took more time to finish than I thought it would. But it's done, and I am happy with it. It looks nice and all the tweaking, testing and trying has paid off and resulted in a better fit. There is still room for improvement. The sloping-shoulder adjustment I made, turned out to be too drastic and the sleeves are too tight on the biceps for real comfort. I can wear it but it's not ideal in that area. Well, at least now I know that these are issues I have to deal with next time.

There are good points as well. Lowering the armscyes has helped to remove a lot of wrinkles in the back. So did the high-rounded back adjustment. The two darts in the back, starting at the shoulderseam, are hardly noticeable. Of course I didn't topstitch these darts, like I did with the rest of the seams.

Talking about topstitching....I used a darkblue, normal thread on the inside and a slightly thicker topstitch-thread on the outside. This caused some looping on the inside, especially at the beginning and end of seams. I even unpicked some parts to redo them because it was so ugly. It's still not perfect but I can live with it now.

The neckline is quite close to the body, but I'll never wear this jacket buttoned all the way up so that won't be a problem.

So there you have it. A new jacket. I have some fabric lurking in the corner, ready to be turned into nice spring/summer things. Most of them are jerseys. Now that I finally, after a wait of 10 weeks (omg!!), received the new little screwdriver that I need to change needles on my overlockmachine - (I lost the old one) - I am ready to tackle jerseys again. Better yet: I just can't wait to dive into that pile of fabric!

Wednesday, April 1, 2015

The jacket is coming along nicely. It's always nice to work with denim and this time it's not different.
The fit is also something I'm thrilled about this time. As far as I can tell at this stage, the back is fitting quite nicely and so is the front. You have to believe me on this 'cause for now I only have pictures of the jacket on the Blue Lady (Who, by the way, is starting to fall apart really badly: losing skin, getting more wrinkled etc. etc...poor thing!).
I basted a lot of the seams to get it to the stage where I could try it on. Now it's time to take them apart, sew real seams and....get the topstitching done. My favourite part :-)

This afternoon I fiddled with the small parts, a.k.a. the pockets and the pocket-flaps. The instruction tells you to sew the pockets on the inside but I chose to place them on the outside. They're gonna be real functioning pockets. Not that I will be putting anything in them, but it's just nice to make them real. You see them here, basted and ready to be used, lying on the lining. And as you can see I also used the ling for the back. The second picture shows the top of the pocket. I folded the seams at the top of both pocket and lining befóre I sewed them together. That makes it so much easier to close it afterwards.

And finally....can you tell I'm a bit of a control freak? Working out a plan of steps in the right order, even planning the different steps day to day (and making notes as I go along).
It's just that I only have 1 sewing-machine and I don't want to be changing sewingthread and topstitching thread all the time. So I try to combine as much tasks using the same thread as possible. And that dear readers requires some planning...

If I follow this plan I should be finishing it all tomorrow. That is never ever gonna happen because I forgot one important detail on the list.....The lining. Not one I'm looking forward to but I'm gonna pull through anyway.

I hope to show you pictures of the end-result soon. Now it's back to the sewing-machine!

Welcome dear reader !

About Me

Hi! This Dutchie's greatest hobby is sewing. I have been doing it since I was about 14 years old. Still can remember my first real sewing job: hemming a sheet. A straight line of stitches....and I was sold. Once I bought my own sewingmachine I started whipping up all kinds of clothes and haven't stopped since. Enjoy my adventures in sewingland.